The silencing of women comes in many forms, but perhaps the most difficult to explain is when that silencing comes from other feminists. Other feminists you respect and share many of the same views with.

We need robust debate in feminism, we need rage, but when we turn on each other to the degree of personally tearing each other apart, then we need to get some perspective. We’re all still women; we ALL still suffer enough at the hands of patriarchy without torturing each other. And having a different view on a variety of subjects does not turn us into each others enemy. What’s so wrong with constructive criticism, debate and disagreement?

Wasn’t debate once called ‘healthy’ ?

It seems however that response to disagreement now commonly leads to various forms of bullying and abuse. Being online can empower women to say the things many of us feel unable to say in the outside world. But obviously this has a potentially huge downside too.

It’s very easy to spit venom into the face of a computer and not the actual face of a fellow human being, the fellow women we claim to want to support and protect. We often have zero idea about the impact of our words or the circumstances surrounding the women receiving these. I think few of us, in reality could deal with the actual consequences first hand because that would make us into actual not virtual bullies. And obviously being online pleasantly removes us from ever having to deal with that potentially unsettling and uncomfortable scenario.

So we can act responsibility here…or not, its a choice we make.

My own experience recently was it being heavily implied that I wasn’t a feminist and I was complicit in male violence. This was for the ‘crime’ of bringing up the (obviously untouchable) subject of privilege/difference between women and how that can skew interpretation in communication. In my view its an important subject to talk about because ideas of good/ bad communication can vary. Someone telling you to ‘play nicely’ by their own cultural/class standards can be oppressive, blah, blah….We don’t need to be told to be ‘nice’, we need to be more fucking understanding of each other and more fucking self aware (and I include myself here too)….

The kind of personally abusive/point scoring response I got is fairly typical online and I’m not saying I’m a special case- quite the opposite. That a stranger feels empowered enough to so negatively sum up and dismiss another woman’s life/politics is pretty common stuff. We’re supposed to dust ourselves down, take it and move on aren’t we? And we all just clap like seals at the circus or give the thumbs up/thumbs down like some sick bloodthirsty audience participation sport..

Yet we all hate online abuse …?

The reality is its actually ‘political’ (e.g. friends get passes of course, passive aggressive doesn’t count) – it very much depends who is saying it. It’s tribal, because it depends which group has most support/power but most of all……………… its bollocks.

Aren’t we just mimicking the abuse, hierarchies, domination and power dynamics of men here? Isn’t it time to start dealing with our own online behaviour with some fucking honestly?Because if we don’t, we’re doing the patriarchs dirty work for them…we’re killing feminism and hurting women in the process….

A stranger online says I am not a feminist. ….. I was at Greenham, I supported my het sisters on abortion rights over years, I’ve spent years organising feminist empowerment workshops for young women/girls, I supported my fellow lesbians against Clause 28, I’ve helped organise many local feminist events, arts weekends, reclaim the night marches etc, I’ve spent the last 7 years supporting the women imprisoned in Yarlswood and local female asylum seekers and now help run a multicuural women’s group. I’ve been briefly imprisoned, thrown down stone steps, attacked, etc, etc etc for my nearly 40 years of supporting women…yet a stranger online says I am not a feminist….

We’re witches hunting each other on an absolutely ludicrous and pointlessly destructive basis…. when what we really need is to Get. Fucking. Real.

I’m writing this in the light of the recent celebrations over the Irish ‘yes’ vote for same-sex marriage.

….And by writing this I’m not judging or condemning anyone’s personal choices in terms of gay marriage. I have fellow gay friends who have recently married, something incredibly important to them and I utterly respect that.

I’m also aware of the obvious benefits of expanding the human rights of gay people in a homophobic society, of highlighting inequality and oppressive ideals.

However, focusing on ‘marriage’ as a form of equality for gay people, in my opinion, is misleading.

As a feminist, marriage is not something I endorse in heterosexual terms. It’s a patriarchal institution with an obvious connection to gendered oppression. It still reeks of crimes against women, of females being passed as if goods between men, of women being robbed of their rights and property, of women forced into undervalued and oppressive roles laced with impossible expectations, of female economic dependence, of state endorsed violation of female bodies, of legal violence and sexual violence etc……
In the light of this, viewing this as a positive institution I’d like to share in is bloody difficult!

Obviously same-sex marriage would preclude these specific gendered oppressive circumstances. However it also creates a similar premise for a lack of autonomy for the individual, for abuse to occur (e.g. economic control of one partner by another), for roles and expectations etc, for isolation. It supports the idea of the ideal lifestyle in terms of a conveniently conservative model for living, …..the nuclear family…. family values…

….all wrapped up with state incentives…

and maybe we should ask ourselves why?

As a feminist I don’t want equality for women, I want liberation. There’s no such thing as equality under patriarchy and while women have grudgingly been allowed certain human rights over the past century, our overall oppression still remains. The same can be said about the gay and lesbian community. In the 1970’s we wanted gay LIBERATION, not tokenism, and certainly not offers of pseudo ‘equality’ by hetero blueprint……..

I find the push for gay marriage under the banner of ‘choice’ uncomfortable. …As for women and any oppressed groups especially, ‘choice’ can be an extremely loaded term. Do we really have freedom here? Or are we being sold this as ‘our choice’ – something which is in reality extremely limiting……?

Why be liberated when you can be ‘normal’??

Are we being guided away from exploring alternative and potentially more freeing ways of living and conducting our relationships? This could be particularly helpful for women as lesbian mothers e.g. exploring a more collective /communal approach to childcare for example….

And for all of us in terms of not viewing our relationships as often unrealistically lifelong monogamous commitments…… Or viewing long term relationships as necessitating neat models of cohabitation….. etc etc etc.

Again, if same-sex marriage is what individuals want, then of course I’ll respect our differing approaches and opinions. As a lesbian I wanted a YES vote in Ireland…..for any society to want to improve the rights of gay people is important.

However, I do think we should at least be questioning what’s on offer here.

When right-wing men like David Cameron are on your side its time to start asking yourself………….. WHY?

– No God, No Boss, No Husband:The world’s first explicitly anarchist-feminist group was created as part of the thriving nineteenth-century Anarchist movement in Argentina. It produced the first anarcha-feminist newspaper, La Voz de la Mujer. Sadly, the history of anarchist-feminism in Argentina has rarely been acknowledged, at best mentioned in passing, at worse ignored or forgotten.La Voz de la Mujer was published in Buenos Aires only nine times, beginning on January 8, 1896 and ending almost exactly one year later on New Year’s Day. Its donors included “Women Avengers Group,” “One Who Wants to Fill a Cannon with the Heads of the Bourgeois,” “Long Live Dynamite,” “Long Live Free Love,” “A Feminist,” “A Female Serpent to Devour the Bourgeois,” “Full of Beer,” “A Man Friendly to Women.”

Most of it was written in Spanish, with only occasional items in Italian. This is not surprising, as it was primarily from Spain that anarchist feminism came to Argentina. Even the feminist material in the Italian press was written largely by Spanish authors. Another version of the paper and bearing its name was published in the provincial town of Rosario (its editor, Virginia Bolten was the only woman known to have been deported in 1902 under the Residence Law, which gave the government the power to expel immigrants active in political organizations). Another La Voz de la Mujer was published in Montevideo, where Bolten was exiled to.La Voz de la Mujer described itself as “dedicated to the advancement of Communist Anarchism.” Its central theme was that of the multiple nature of women’s oppression. An editorial asserted, “We believe that in present-day society nothing and nobody has a more wretched situation than unfortunate women.” Women, they said, were doubly oppressed – by bourgeois society and by men. Its feminism can be seen from its attack on marriage and upon male power over women. Its contributors, like anarchist feminists elsewhere, developed a concept of oppression that focused on gender oppression. Marriage was a bourgeois institution which restricted women’s freedom, including their sexual freedom. Marriages entered into without love, fidelity maintained through fear rather than desire, oppression of women by men they hated – all were seen as symptomatic of the coercion implied by the marriage contract. It was this alienation of the individual’s will that the anarchist feminists deplored and sought to remedy, initially through free love and then, and more thoroughly, through social revolution.La Voz de la Mujer was a paper written by women for women, it was an independent expression of an explicitly feminist current within South America’s labour movement and was one of the first recorded instances of the fusion of feminist ideas with a revolutionary and working-class orientation. As with Emma Goldman, Louise Michel and Voltairine de Cleyre, it differed from the mainstream feminism by being a working class movement which placed the struggle against patriarchy as part of a wider struggle against economic and social classes and hierarchies. It was not centred on educated middle-class women, whose feminism was dismissed as a “bourgeois” or “reformist.”Anarchist feminism emerged in Buenos Aires in the 1890s, where the growth of the economy increased the demand for labour which was satisfied through immigration on a vast scale. The largest ethnic group were the Italians, followed by the Spaniards and French. It was among these immigrant communities that the group producing La Voz de la Mujer arose and was active. As with elsewhere in the Americas, Anarchism was originally imported by immigrants from the European countries in which there was a strong Anarchist movement – Italy, Spain, and France. Anarchist groups and publications first emerged in the 1860s and the 1870s and, due to the social conditions in Argentina, found fertile soil. Like the immigrant communities they were part of, the anarchists formed an integral part of the working class movement in Argentina and shaping its ideas and struggles. The anarchists helped form some of the first unions, organising strikes and demonstrations. In the 1880s and 1890s there were sometimes as many as 20 Anarchist papers being published at any one time, in French, Spanish, and Italian.

La Voz de la Mujer appeared after half a century of continuous Anarchist activity. It was part of the communist-anarchist tradition and was dedicated to the overthrow of the existing society and the creation of a new, just, and egalitarian social order organized on the principle of “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” As was the case elsewhere, a distinctive feminist current developed with the main impulse for anarchist feminism coming from Spanish activists (however, Italian exiles like Errico Malatesta and Pietro Gori gave support to feminist ideas in their journals and articles). Equal pay for women was raised as a demand and supported by a significant number of labour unions in the Argentine Workers’ Federation in 1901.La Voz de la Mujer militant anti-reformist stance aroused response among women workers in the cities of Buenos Aires, La Plata, and Rosario, as it lasted a year and printed between 1,000 and 2,000 copies of each issue, a respectable number for an Anarchist paper of its time. Its editors were drawn from the large Spanish and Italian communities and identified themselves with the women of the working class. Its distinctiveness as an Anarchist paper lay in its recognition of the specificity of women’s oppression. It called upon women to mobilise against their subordination both as women and as workers. Its first editorial was a passionate rejection of women’s lot:“fed up as we are with so many tears and so much misery; fed up with the never ending drudgery of children (dear though they are); fed up with asking and begging; of being a plaything for our infamous exploiters or vile husbands, we have decided to raise our voices in the concert of society and demand, yes, demand our bit of pleasure in the banquet of life. ”Its appearance received a mixed response from the rest of the Anarchist movement, ranging from silence and hostility to praise. One paper gave it a particularly warm welcome, stating that “a group of militant women have unfurled the red flag of anarchy and intend to publish a magazine for propaganda among those who are their comrades both in work and in misery. We greet the valiant initiators of this project, and at the same time we call on all our comrades to support them.” This was unsurprising, as a substantial section of the Anarchist press was sympathetic to feminist issues at this time. The mid-1890s in Argentina saw increasing coverage of issues relating to women’s equality and in particular to marriage, the family, prostitution, and the domination of women by men. Some papers even published special series of pamphlets devoted to “the woman question.” La Questione Sociale, the Italian-language paper founded by Malatesta when he came to Argentina in 1883, published a series of pamphlets “especially dedicated to an analysis of women’s issues.” Thejournal Germinal, which first appeared in 1897, was particularly concerned with the “woman question” and carried several articles under the general heading of “Feminism,” and it defended “the extremely revolutionary and just character of feminism” against the charge that it was merely a creation of “elegant little ladies.” Much if not all of the feminist material in the Anarchist press appears to have been written by women.

Yet this apparent sympathy for feminism in principle within the Anarchist ranks was matched by substantial opposition in practice. The first issue of La Voz de la Mujer seems to have aroused considerable hostility, because in the following issue the editors attacked the antifeminist attitudes prevalent among men in the movement in no uncertain terms. As they put it:“When we women, unworthy and ignorant as we are, took the initiative and published La Voz de la Mujer, we should have known, Oh modem rogues, how you would respond with your old mechanistic philosophy to our initiative. You should have realized that we stupid women have initiative and that is the product of thought. You know – we also think . . . The first number of La Voz de la Mujer appeared and of course, all hell broke loose: ‘Emancipate women? For what?’ ‘Emancipate women? Not on your nelly!’ . . . ‘Let our emancipation come first, and then, when we men are emancipated and free, we shall see about yours.’” The editors concluded that women can hardly rely upon men to take the initiative in demanding equality for women, given this kind of hostile attitude. The same issue contains an article entitled “To the Corrupters of the Ideal” in which men are warned, “You had better understand once and for all that our mission is not reducible to raising your children and washing your clothes and that we also have a right to emancipate ourselves and to be free from all kinds of tutelage, whether economic or marital.” The editorial in the third issue emphasised that they were attacking not male Anarchist comrades in general but only those “false Anarchists” who failed to defend “one of Anarchism’s most beautiful ideals – the emancipation of women.” The editors’ outrage was justified given that Anarchism advocated freedom and equality for all humankind, not just men. As women were oppressed by patriarchy they, as an oppressed group, could rightly demand support from fellow Anarchists in their struggle for emancipation. However, for many male anarchists such issues could be ignored until “after the revolution” a position the editors of La Voz de la Mujer rightly rejected as self-serving. Unsurprisingly, Anarchism, more than other schools of socialism with their emphasis on economic exploitation, was able to accommodate the struggle against patriarchy. However, this theoretical support for feminism was more often than not associated with sexism in practice. It is not difficult to see why feminists were attracted to Anarchism and why they were so rightly opposed to male anarchist hypocrisy. Its key ideas stress the….struggle against authority, including the power exercised over women in marriage and the family. All anarchists should be seeking freedom within relationships. The Anarchist emphasis on oppression and on power relations opened up a space within which women could be seen simultaneously as the victims of class society and as the victims of male authority. As La Voz de la Mujer expressed it in its fourth issue: “We hate authority because we aspire to be human beings and not machines directed by the will of ‘another,’ be this authority, religion, or any other name.” Its aim is best summed up when one of its supporters signed herself “No God, No Boss, No Husband.”

In recent days the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has stated that ‘pornography is good for you’. Once again we see a lefty male make anti-feminist/anti women pronouncements without seemingly any understanding of the harm of this ….but yes, with all the authority his privileged educated white male status affords him.

Peter talks about condemning violence towards women in pornography- yet this is the reality of even the ‘mainstream’ het porn many are watching on a daily basis and from a very, very young age. Criticism of such has nothing to do with prudery, as Tatchell also (predictably!) suggested, but is to highlight the misogynistic violence and hatred both often either suggested or openly presented in much of its content. Normalising of these negative and brutal ideas and imagery can only cause harm in the minds of men and boys and do much, much worse to women and girls.

‘It is true, and very much to the point, that women are objects, commodities, some deemed more expensive than others ’. From Woman Hating

Pornography isn’t just a fantasy either. What is depicted on screen is happening to real women. That’s why we must listen to the voices of exited women. We must acknowledge that exploitation, trafficking, coercion, racism, homophobia, violence including sexual violence etc are very much part of an ‘industry’ which thrives on the values of domination and misogyny.

‘It is a fundamental human right to be free of sexual exploitation in all its forms. Women and girls have the right to sexual integrity and autonomy’. CATW

While personally being very wary of attaching the word ‘feminist’ to ‘pornography’ especially in an on-going patriarchal culture, Tatchell talks about ‘feminist porn’ as ethical (- holding up one article he has presumably just found on the net!). Does he use feminist porn? Do many other men?? Yet this is the one example we are given as ‘good pornography’…..
When Tatchell talks of ‘non-abusive porn’ what does he mean? How can common depictions of fantasies/reality involving the often violent subordination of women be described as ‘non-abusive’? How many men and boys, for example, prioritise ‘ethicalness’ when searching for porn anyway?

Pornography is the epitome of male entitlement.

Tatchell talks about ‘consensual pornography’. Issues of consent are very complex, involving anything from economic to societal, patriarchal and gendered factors and pressures. Consent and choice are not necessarily aligned. Also how does a viewer discern consensual and non-consensual pornography anyway? Any porn site may involve those who are non-consensual, trafficked, drugged, raped, beaten or underage. Does the viewer even care?

Tatchell also highlights amateur porn as somehow ‘better’ than pornography produced through more corporate means. Amateur porn, which largely follows the misogynistic narratives, values and standards created by corporate porn anyway, has even less ‘regulation’ than that which is produced by the so called ‘sex industry’. How is that positive?
Tatchell sees porn use as beneficial. He highlights people with disabilities as needing a sexual outlet as one example of where porn can do good. Firstly he is speaking ‘on behalf’ of a group of very diverse people. Many people with disabilities, as many other people, live fulfilled lives without the use of porn. Secondly, no one has an automatic right to be involved in the exploitation of others for their own sexual gratification. (When I suggested to Tatchell that people with disabilities who were isolated should have a right to a social life, not porn, he answered by saying that society is ‘screwed up’ so this wouldn’t happen….. What, therefore is the point of trying to improve society and any human rights, including gay rights? Is any social problem really ‘solved’ with another?).

The arguments Tatchell uses to endorse such a statement are repetitions of many men who wish to justify their own porn use – clearly viewing the world as if it is exists to cater for their own privileged requirements and indulgences…..under the usual ‘progressive’ banner.

What may be perceived as ‘good for you’ Peter, or for any white privileged ‘progressive’ male, is not so good for those who are coerced into sexual activity they don’t want through the narratives of porn, those who have their bodies held up to ‘porn standards’, and all those who may be exploited, trafficked, raped and subjugated as a result of pornography.

note…..

‘Striving for social justice and defending pornography are two things which are inherently contradictory’. Maggie Hayes.

This week, online, has all been about a letter against no-platforming and in support of free speech. Though the letter did not state any particular viewpoint other than this, of those who signed (men, women, transwomen), many were then subjected to a barrage of harassment, abuse and even death threats. Some who signed stated they had been reduced to tears and their thoughts turned to permanently keeping quiet…..

So welcome to the reality of speaking out. This sort of wrath and punishment is all too familiar to gender critical feminists. In fact silencing has been a weapon used against all women including feminists for centuries – but now silencing is becoming real. It can touch anyone……

But rather than oppose such tactics, the reaction of many has been (worryingly) to appease…. As a result of that letter and subsequent backlash, suddenly a number of high profile, mainly media-savvy men, for example, have been rushing to pledge various forms of ‘support’….. not for ‘that letter’ and free speech – no. Because speech has always been free for privileged white men……. (Unless it challenges that position of course…)…..

‘Support’, it seems, means bowing down to both often bullying and irrational positions. No mention that discussion is not allowed on where this leaves women and their safe spaces, and the toxic existence of violence associated with male socialisation. No discussion is allowed when reality and history are twisted to suit, while adding to the erasure of women and the erasure of lesbians, (but hey, when did the L actually have a true voice in the LGBT movement anyway?).

Owen Jones from, his position of privilege, nevertheless goes on to highlight ‘one of history’s little tragic ironies’ suggesting lesbians like me should be grateful for……erm – the Stonewall Riots as a……. ‘Trans riot’??…. (e.g. Revisionist history to suit a contemporary TA agenda….)

One of the central participants in the riots was actually Stormé DeLarverie – largely ignored for this fact by LGBT history because she was a woman, a lesbian and a WOC. A tiny part in the history of the silencing of women……. While being central in the ‘civil rights disobedience’ (her own words) of Stonewall, Stormé was also part of the gay scene of NY, at the time working as a drag king performer.

(Before she is also rewritten into ‘trans history’……she was a woman and a lesbian, later working to support women who had been abused in DV. She died last year….There is a contemporary trend to re-asses and appropriate much of lesbian history as ‘trans’. For example, many lesbians from history who wore perceived ‘masculine clothes’ are now being interpreted under the trans banner. This disregards the fact that these people themselves clearly identified as lesbians, and as women. The reason for any women to ‘cross dress’ historically are complex and varied but incorporate reasons from lesbian ‘codes’/identity, to performance, to emancipation and sheer bloody practicality. To understand this you need to look deeper than mere surface appearance. You need to understand female and lesbian oppression – a point both missing from much of TA and from general debate due to…….. well…….silencing).

The Stonewall riots have been well documented as involving ‘drag queens’. This was part of the scene that Stormé also occupied. Drag Queens by definition are also performers – as was Stormé, who mostly identify in everyday life as men, often gay men. In recent times many have included performers such as Thomas Neuwirth as ‘trans’, a man who has clearly stated he is both a gay man and drag act – adopting the stage name ‘Conchita Wurst’.

It is not only this re-writing of history, but a re-writing of reality, which seems to underpin much of TA. And like the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ we are not only expected to be silent on these matters, but also endorse much of the charade – or ………. as well as threats, blocking debate, silencing….. have journalists like Owen Jones telling me as a feminist and a lesbian I’m neglecting ‘the cause of trans people’.

In a week where I’ve personally been trying to support a woman who has suffered extreme violence/control from not only her husband and father, but also from the state due to the fact that she was born female…..and in a week where I’ve been asked to attend the inquest of a woman (a lesbian) who committed suicide after a campaign of harassment from a man…..

Though our views may vary, I understand that feminism encompasses differing views and strategies. I do however believe in healthy debate within feminism on subjects and a right to differ. I do understand her views were based on personal experience and respect that. However, as an influential writer, I also find they somewhat endorse an existing dangerous and damaging precedent.

As I’ve said before where ever you stand on ‘the trans issue’ within feminism, you cannot deny difference. Women and transwomen ARE different, whether in terms of socialisation, health, biology, social/political history and so on. The experience of being a woman is not something transwomen will ever know, nor vice versa. It is biologically impossible for someone born male to ‘become a woman’ no matter what is done to a body or outward appearance. Unless of course if you believe, in what my view is, very worrying ideas about ‘innate gender’ and ‘female brains’ etc that is …..

Actually being a woman is a particular experience and as women we have a basic right to own this.

Even using this article’s title therefore, in my opinion, really undermines the reality of womanhood. It projects the oppressive notion that womanhood is something which may be synthetically imposed and dismisses it as an actual valid experience. Yes, women are different too and it is important to define ourselves by these hugely impacting differences. But all women share basic aspects of being female and all women as a class are still universally oppressed by the misogyny embedded in patriarchy.

When those born male transition, they do not experience womanhood as a result, but that of being a transwoman. This may provoke abuse and violence, but as transwomen have said themselves, this is not (straightforward) misogyny but often linked to oppression such as homophobia (- and there is obviously a complex debate about how this manifests). Transwomen therefore simply can not ‘reveal …. what it means to become a woman’’. They can only ever reveal the experience of transwomen.

To state otherwise is to add to a world already intent on erasing the reality of actual womanhood.

For me and many others, it is a basic imperative of our feminism to acknowledge the people who actually and truly can relate this reality. From the complexities of female socialisation, to living within patriarchal societies, to particular oppression, health issues, education etc etc etc…….we learn from ourselves and other women. We learn from the women who came before us. We learn from women from many cultures.

We learn from women.

No one born male can do that for us and this is particularly important in a world where ideals of ‘womanhood’ are continually, oppressively, destructively ascribed to us – by men.

I personally abhor all forms of male violence and have stood up against it in many forms, for many years, for many different people. There’s certainly nothing wrong with empathy. However it’s also imperative to view the bigger picture in feminism and the impact of our individual voices for women as a class.

In a world in which those socialised in male gender roles are themselves responsible for most of the violence towards everyone, this is not an issue of personal compassion. It is about basic survival for women and protecting a recognised, valued state of actual womanhood.